Helping Your Garden Grow @ Girl-Doll Fashion Gossip

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You might have thought about it a time or two, but have you seriously considered heading outside and creating your own garden? It can be as simple as buying a bag of enriched garden soil and a few seeds, but there is a quiet satisfaction in growing your own plants or vegetables. It’s also a nice way to spend time outside being productive when you get that itch to do something besides just laying around.

The Container Garden

A container garden can work anywhere, even apartments if you have the right lighting conditions. All plants need sunshine to grow, but some need direct sun and others just need indirect light and grow well in the shade. Head over to the nursery to buy some small plants and some bigger pots. Read the tags in the plants or research plants online before hand to see which are best for containers, but you’ll find there are plenty like tomatoes and herbs that are awesome in pots.

For your container garden, why not buy the inexpensive clay pots and a new set of paint pens? Decorate the pots however you like using your creative genius and then plant them. Not only will your garden grow, it will look great doing it.

The Raised Garden

If you have a bunch of rocks and concrete in the backyard, you don’t have to dig into them. Instead, you can create a raised garden. This is another great chance to get creative. They sell raised garden kits in the garden centers that form little circles you fill with dirt and then plant. If you’re the least bit handy though, you can build your own. You can make a raised garden bed with landscaping timbers, treated lumber or an old plastic swimming pool. The goal is to build what amounts to a tub or box over the ground, fill it in with vegetable soil and then get started planting.

The plants will have at least eight inches to grow roots in the fresh soil above the concrete and this is enough for most small vegetables and flowering plants. Be careful planting something that needs deep root growth, however, such as a tree. Even the tiniest trees have a tendency to become big trees, so be sure you pick plants that stay small enough you can deal with them in the containers.

Caring For a Garden

Once you have your garden planted, you get to care for it. It’s actually pretty simple to take care of your plants. Start by planting in rich soil designed for the plants you’re caring for. Vegetables go in vegetable soil and flowering plants go in landscaping soil. Then water the plants regularly, usually every other day, but possibly every day if it’s hot and dry out. Pull any weeds that might appear in your garden and offer your plants a bit of fertilizer as they need it. As your flowers and vegetables appear, enjoy watching them grow before your harvest and pruning.